Seeing Through The Smoke Rings

December 26, 1985|The Morning Call

The California jury that refused to hold a cigarette manufacturer responsible for the death by cancer of a user of its product has performed a valuable national service. By distinguishing between product liability and personal responsibility, the Superior Court jurors in Santa Barbara have put paid to the posthumous plaintiff's theory.

The family of John M. Galbraith, the dead man who had been a compulsive smoker for years, sought to prove in court that the cigarette company had failed to give adequate notice that its product could adversely affect this particular smoker's health. The line of argument advanced by their lawyers in the $1-million suit was that the deceased could not overcome his addiction to cigarettes. Even repeated warnings by his doctor and friends could not convince him to stop smoking. His death was attributed to lung cancer, heart and other respiratory ailments.

Interestingly, some of the jurors made a point after the verdict that is worth noting. While they were willing to concede that the 69-year-old man had acquired a cigarette "habit" they did not accept that he had become a cigarette "addict." They made an important distinction between a habit and an addiction. In effect, they said, the choice to continue smoking was his.

This jury's decision (which will go to appeal) will not reverse our national rush into the Age of No Fault, where individual responsibility is an extinct species, swallowed by collective responsibility. But this common-sense decision may slow down that acceleration a bit. So long as the smoking of cigarettes and the drinking of alcohol are legal for adult Americans, so long must the individuals who choose to use these products be held responsible - and accountable - for their right to exercise their free choice. No one else should be expected to accept this responsibility or be liable for its abdication.